Analysis by David Teeghman
Tue Jun 22, 2010 01:40 PM ET

The most consistent complaint I ever hear (or make) about smart phones is they eat up power like a fat kid eats candy. But a new development in how to manufacture rechargeable batteries for portable electronics could allow batteries to hold ten times more power than they do now.

Researchers at MIT found that using carbon nanotubes for one of the battery's electrodes hold much more energy than the current breed of lithium-ion batteries. The experimental batteries use layered carbon nanotubes as the positive electrode and a lithium titanium oxide as the negative electrode. The batteries deliver power at the high-speed rates of capacitors while being able to store more energy than even the best lithium-ion batteries available today.

The carbon nanotube electrodes also proved their longevity. After 1,000 cycles of charging and discharging a test battery, there was no detectable change in the material's performance.

That's good news for anyone with an electric device that runs on batteries, your humble blogger included. I have to charge my Android phone each night just to get through the next day. If these batteries come to market, my little Droid Eris could last for days without a charge.

But that's still a big if. The electrode material was produced by dipping a substrate into two different solutions, a pretty time-consuming process. One of the researchers leading the project, MIT professor of chemical engineering, Paula Hammond, says her team may have a solution. Hammond suggests that the process could be modified by spraying the alternate layers onto a moving ribbon of material, a technique now being developed in her lab.

Until then, I'm stuck charging my smart phone every night.

Originally Posted by cjp

Well it has indeed been so, that phone hardware keeps getting faster and faster, while battery tech has stayed the same. I would also welcome this new battery.

Got any links to any of this, btw?

Originally Posted by geneven

The easiest immediate way to revolutionize the amount of available battery power would be to add some sort of capacitor to a device so batteries could be swapped without interrupting the power supply.

Originally Posted by geneven

The easiest immediate way to revolutionize the amount of available battery power would be to add some sort of capacitor to a device so batteries could be swapped without interrupting the power supply.